Water Balloon Kickstarter Campaign Makes Splash, Raises Nearly $1 Million

Build a better water balloon, and the world will slosh a path to your door — or so it seems.

Think I’m all wet? Check out the Kickstarter campaign for a product whimsically named Bunch O Balloons, which fills 100 water balloons in less than a minute.

Texas entrepreneur Josh Malone hoped to raise $10,000 to test the market for his quirky invention. So far, he’s collected pledges amounting to more than $865,000 from nearly 20,500 donors — with 11 days remaining in the Kickstarter campaign.

“Obviously, the response has been greater than we could have dreamed,” Malone wrote on the Kickstarter campaign site.

The inspiration for the product was born in the heat of Plano’s summers. Malone said he loves having water balloon fights with his eight children, but found the tedious process of filling all those little orbs just “sucked all the fun out of” the experience. After years of tinkering, this idea was born.

The Bunch O Balloons looks as if it draws its design inspiration from a grapevine. Its polyurethane plastic stem attaches to a hose, and simultaneously fills 37 balloons that are connected individually to slender tubes and held in place with tiny o-rings. Once filled, you gently shake the stem to release the water balloons — which have already been cinched.

Given the unexpected response to the product, Malone said he has revised his fundraising goals. If Bunch O Balloons gets $1.67 million in pledges, he will make a deposit on an automatic assembly line capable of mass producing the product by 2015. His hopes to be able to create 20,000 packs (two million balloons) per day.

Take that, Mr. Potato Salad.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.